Re: Unfortunate Resurrection of Your Previous Patient
by TolkienScholar
Summary: Oneshot. Uncle Screwtape writes a letter of advice to Eleanor Shellstrop's tempter after her resurrection puts their former success with her in jeopardy.


**Disclaimer: I own neither **_**The Screwtape Letters**_** nor **_**The Good Place**_**. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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**MC4A Fill Number:** FF; SoC; PP; LL; NC; SIN; ToS; FPC; MT; Rum; MLG; ER; Fence; DP; FIN; O3  
**Individual Challenges:** In a Flash (N); Clickbait It (N); New Fandom Smell (x2; Y); Dark Side MC (N); Mastermind MC (N); Immortal MC (Y); Seeds (N); Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); Time for Change (N); Themes & Things A – Change (N); Themes & Things B – Corruption (N); Themes & Things E – Dress (N); Themes & Things F – Improvement (N)  
**Representations:** Screwtape; Eleanor Shellstrop; Demons; Tempter; Mentor & Mentee; Afterlife; Second Chances; Biblical Allusion; Deception  
**Bonus Challenges:** Second Verse (Under the Bridge, Shiver & Shake, Casper's House, Lyre Liar, Most Human Bean, Muck & Slime, Rock of Ages, For the Vine, Lovely Coconuts, Unwanted Advice, Not a Lamp, Persistence Still); Chorus (Hot Stuff, Sitting Hummingbird, Seven Gates, Creature Feature, Eternal Boredom, Larger than Life)  
**Tertiary Bonus Challenges:** O3 (Oust); FIN (Fioriture); DP (Immemorial, Terse)  
**Winter Bingo Space Address:** D2 (Gift)  
**Word Count:** 486

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My dear Prawntail,

I must admit to experiencing some shock upon reception of your recent letter. Naturally, I sympathize with your frustrations; to be pulled from your assignment and returned to the case of a patient we believed to be safely in our clutches is trying in the extreme. Of course, such a thing is not unheard of. I recall a case some two thousand years ago where a young tempter—whom, I might add, I marked as a failure from the beginning—was unexpectedly given a second chance to reclaim a particularly obnoxious patient who used all her spare time making clothes for the poor. I'm sure you can guess how successful he was on the second attempt. Following her return to life, the patient continued in her disgusting pattern of behaviour and within a few years returned to the Good Place, while the young tempter resumed his punishment. Fortunately, Our Father Below took my advice and imposed a more severe penalty on him for his second failure.

However, none of this really applies to you, as you "succeeded" in bringing your patient to Our Father's house in her first life. I put "succeeded" in quotes because you really had very little part in it; your patient's own ideas in the pursuit of Evil were far more creative than the ones you suggested to her. Indeed, I had hardly written to tell you how banal and trite I thought the torn dress incident was when you gleefully told me about the delightful T-shirt scheme the patient herself invented. Oh, you tried to take the credit all right, but you forgot to consider that Grimlouse, tempter to your patient's roommate, was also under my oversight and would equally attempt to claim responsibility for the scheme. It did not take long for me to determine that neither of you deserved any accolade for the idea whatsoever; indeed, in that moment I would have taken your patient as a tempter in her own right over the both of you!

In any case, the question now arises as to what course to pursue now that your patient has somehow been returned to her earthly life. You were very ambiguous in your previous letter, but I gather that your patient has been shaken by her "near death experience" and is harbouring thoughts of self-improvement. It remains to us to consider whether to discourage these efforts entirely and induce her to remain in her old way of life—a desirable prospect, certainly, considering how successful it was the first time around—or to use her new attempts at self-improvement to draw her more firmly into our grasp. I will enumerate how we might approach this in my next letter. In the meantime, tell me more about your patient's mental state and what her intentions seem to be, and for your own good, I suggest you be specific.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape


End file.
